Scypha blinked. The cold, moist air of the forest woke her up from her reverie, and she found herself kneeling on dew-covered moss in the shade of a tree.

She looked around but, in so doing, gained no sense of direction. She had no idea where she was. The landscape around her was unfamiliar and disconcerting, providing no clues or landmarks to orient her. The familiar slave carts were gone, the road was nowhere to be seen ... she was well and truly lost.

Suddenly, a sharp pain pierced through her mind, and she felt something crawling in her head. She covered her face with her hands and forced her eyes tightly shut, trying to escape the throbbing ache. An agonizing screech echoed in her brain, reverberating like nails on a sheet of metal, followed by the scuttling of a hundred tiny, little spikes. Inside, she felt something bite her.

After a while, the pain gradually began to fade. She felt a cold wind blow on her exposed neck and hands, and her breathing finally calmed down. She let her hands fall back down to her sides, swallowing hard, and turned away from the cold, trying forcefully to relax herself.

She saw the prophet, her knight in shining armor, standing right in front of her, watching her closely. He had a slight stubble on his chin, as though he had recently shaved, perhaps just before he had appeared to her. Forcing herself to push the agony to the back of her mind, Scypha smiled warmly and walked a few steps forward, wrapping her arms around him and hugging him tightly. He felt larger than life, and her raging heart calmed down as they touched.

“I’m glad you’re okay,” he whispered. His breath was warm against her ear as they stood entwined in each other’s embrace. “I’m sorry about the pain. I hope it will get better.”

“It’s fine,” she said. “It’s no tradeoff at all. I … I don’t feel the urges anymore. I feel like I’m all there, I’m … lucid. I’ll be grateful to you for the rest of my life.”

“Those urges might come back,” the knight whispered. He gently pulled away, his stubbled cheeks slipping apart from hers as he gazed into her eyes. “As might the memory loss. I don’t want to lie to you, Scypha. I’ve never done this before. I don’t know the limits to my influence on you – and all of it comes at a price. Truly, the last thing I want is to hurt you, but what I’ve done is dangerous. You could die.”

Scypha shrugged. “Well, at least no one else will,” she said. “I’m so glad we could free all of those goblins without violence. By my lord god, Vifafey, how did you convince those slavers to let everyone go?”

The knight shook his head, seemingly suppressing a laugh, then smiled. “It wasn’t just me. You helped me quite a bit, yourself … My lord god told me the truth. You’re really not just a name and a cute little face.”

This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

Scypha suddenly found herself looking away from the knight … and blushing, slightly. Her cheeks started feeling a little hot.

“I’m … sorry,” the knight said. “I shouldn’t have said that. I know now is not the time. Anyway, we have work to do. Like I said, my people need us. They’ve been enslaved by a shard of the divine, but we can free them … if we work together.”

Scypha nodded, a feeling of elation clouding up her head. “I’ll do it,” she said. “I’ll do anything you ask.”

The knight smiled. “Thank you. I truly appreciate it. And I, um … I won’t try to convert you to my religion if you don’t want to. Just know that, if you do … I know Vifafey has never listened to your prayers, but … my god would welcome you with open arms. I swear it.”

Scypha shook her head. “I’ve always worshipped Vifafey. It’s mainstream, I know, but I’m a priestess’s daughter. I can’t convert.”

“I understand.”

Scypha smiled. Most people tended to ask how her mother, a priestess, came to have a child, and then she’d have to explain that she was a bastard. She wondered if the knight already knew, or if he simply had tact.

“Hey, do you know where all the goblins went?” she asked suddenly. “The slavers said they were going to try to repent for what they’d done, right? I remember the funny looks on their faces. But … my memory is all fuzzy. What happened to the goblins?”

“Oh.” The knight shrugged. “The goblins are … goblins. They went in every which direction they could. We’ll probably find a few of them on our way down south to Ryzayah. I know some of them were kind to you. They’re okay—and part of my god’s plan, in fact.”

“Oh? And … Ryzayah? Is that where we’re going?”

“Yes – although we might take a few detours on our way. Have you heard about it? It’s a big city. Full of humans, goblins, and the like. Mostly humans, at this point.”

Scypha nodded. “My mom told me a few things about it when I was back home. Some traveling merchants did, too … but none of what I heard was good, to be honest. They said the place was … strange. Full of heathens.”

The knight smiled, suppressing a chuckle. “I can see your mother expressed herself a little more colorfully than that … but she did tell you the truth. It is a strange place. Hundreds of my people are being forced to live somewhere in there, under unholy tyranny. Goblins, too, of course.”

“Well … we’ll save them all. I promise.”

The knight gazed into Scypha’s eyes, softly smiling and mouthing a silent thank you.

There had never been a more beautiful moment.

But then suddenly, Scypha began trembling, and the warm feeling of happiness in her faded in an instant, quickly being replaced by horror. Her breath came in deep, raspy gasps, and her heart began pounding in her ears. She saw death all around her: corpses, torn-apart trees, blood everywhere—

The knight darted towards her, quick as a breeze, and held her by the cheeks. He stopped mere inches away from her.

“Shh…” he whispered. “It’s okay, Scypha. You don’t have to see that. You don’t have to feel it. Just relax. Let me take it away...”

A searing pain shot through Scypha's head again, seizing her thoughts and leaving her stunned and confused. She winced as it got worse, closing her eyes and clutching her head in her hands. Again, she felt that unsettling sensation, as if something were squirming beneath her skull, slicing open and biting into her brain. She began bleeding out of her nose, the red droplets dripping onto her arms. Something massive and snakelike was towering over her, shaking the ground and screeching louder than an earthquake. Then even her eyes filled with red, and—